"STRENGTH PREVAILS"
Heartache Haunts Another Stringer Trip To Final Four
TOM CANAVAN
AP Sports
Rutgers Responds
Reuters
Rutgers women's basketball team members responded to Don Imus's sexist and racially insensitive remarks at a press conference on Tuesday.
Editorial: Why Imus Must Go
What has made it OK for men -- White and Black -- to make Black women the butt of jokes and scorn?
TOM CANAVAN
AP Sports
Rutgers Responds
Reuters
Rutgers women's basketball team members responded to Don Imus's sexist and racially insensitive remarks at a press conference on Tuesday.
Editorial: Why Imus Must Go
What has made it OK for men -- White and Black -- to make Black women the butt of jokes and scorn?
Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer wanted everyone to see the women who Don Imus insulted the way she sees them - as a talented, classy group that overcame adversity to play for a national championship."No one can make you feel inferior unless you allow them. We can't let other people steal our joy," Stringer said at a news conference Tuesday, a day after Imus was suspended for two weeks for referring to the players as "nappy-headed hos."The Rutgers' administration and the team called Imus' remarks last week "despicable," but stopped short of saying he should be fired and agreed to meet privately with the embattled radio host.
"My role as a coach is one to love, nurture, discipline, teach and prepare our young women for leadership roles in this society," Stringer said. "And that I am sure of. And all that we do and all of the travels we have had, this group of young women have been presented as nothing less than class, in every aspect of all that they do."For Stringer, the accomplishment of this team was special because they had come so far this season. They started out 2-4, including an embarrassing 40-point loss to Duke, which was ranked No. 1 for most of the season.The 59-year-old Hall of Fame coach was so disappointed with the team early this season, she took away some privileges, making them wash their own practice clothes.
You Make the Call
"Through perseverance, hard work, determination, during the Christmas holidays, they spent eight to 10 hours working and going through films, studying and working so hard to become all of what they could be," she said. "And ultimately, they ended up playing for the national championship. No one believed in them but them."It was an uplifting Final Four story. Stringer's three other Final Four trips were marred by tragedy.When she took little Cheyney State to the national title game in 1982, it was the same year her infant daughter, Janine, came down with spinal meningitis and was close to death several times. The disease left Janine severely handicapped and confined to a wheelchair.Eleven years later, Stringer led Iowa to the Final Four less than six months after her husband, Bill, died of a massive heart attack on Thanksgiving Day 1992.Stringer took the Rutgers job in June 1995, less than a year after Rutgers president Francis L. Lawrence created a controversy by saying that African-Americans lacked "the genetic hereditary background" to score well on standardized tests. Lawrence apologized but did not resign as many asked.
BV Sports Blog
Who You Calling A Nappy Headed Ho?
It wasn't bad enough that the Vols crushed Rutgers in the Women's NCAA tournament, now the Rutgers gals are being called "nappy-headed hos' by radio host Don Imus.
You Make the Call
"Through perseverance, hard work, determination, during the Christmas holidays, they spent eight to 10 hours working and going through films, studying and working so hard to become all of what they could be," she said. "And ultimately, they ended up playing for the national championship. No one believed in them but them."It was an uplifting Final Four story. Stringer's three other Final Four trips were marred by tragedy.When she took little Cheyney State to the national title game in 1982, it was the same year her infant daughter, Janine, came down with spinal meningitis and was close to death several times. The disease left Janine severely handicapped and confined to a wheelchair.Eleven years later, Stringer led Iowa to the Final Four less than six months after her husband, Bill, died of a massive heart attack on Thanksgiving Day 1992.Stringer took the Rutgers job in June 1995, less than a year after Rutgers president Francis L. Lawrence created a controversy by saying that African-Americans lacked "the genetic hereditary background" to score well on standardized tests. Lawrence apologized but did not resign as many asked.
BV Sports Blog
Who You Calling A Nappy Headed Ho?
It wasn't bad enough that the Vols crushed Rutgers in the Women's NCAA tournament, now the Rutgers gals are being called "nappy-headed hos' by radio host Don Imus.
Stringer eventually became the first coach to take three schools to the Final Four when she led Rutgers there in 2000. That trip was surrounded by concerns about her youngest son, Justin, who suffered serious head injuries in an automobile accident that season. Two years earlier, another son, David, had been indirectly involved in a shooting death while at North Carolina State."She has been through many struggles," said Rutgers junior forward Essence Carson, one of eight black players on the Scarlet Knights' 10-player roster. "That just proved to us, it's not just where you come from, it's where you're going.""We embody her," Carson added. "She embodies us. And we are just proud to be part of this Rutgers women's basketball team.
"Even as a teenager, Stringer was a leader, becoming the first black cheerleader at her school.Her father, a coal miner in western Pennsylvania, convinced her to go before a school board and get the position."He said to me, 'Vivian, if you don't stand up for something, you will fall for anything, and you know what? This might not be about you, or for you, but it is for future generations of young women that you need to take a stand,"' Stringer recalled.Now, more than 40 years later, racism has confronted Stringer again.She called Imus' comments "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and unconscionable.""It's not about them (players) as black or nappy-headed. It's about us as a people," Stringer said. "When there is not equality for all, or when there has been denied equality for one, there has been denied equality for all."
